Things and Stuff

"No way," you say, "not a BLOG UPDATE."

These things, they happen.

Whenever I write things like blog posts, I write about what I'm thinking about. These days, I just try to avoid thinking about things, hence I haven't written any blog posts in a while. There exists a remarkable number of ways to completely shut out active thinking in this modern age. All I have to do is immerse myself in any of quite a few mind-numbing trivialities, and I can pass the time between when I wake up in the morning and when I go to sleep at night and enjoy myself at the same time. It's not exactly a fulfilling existence, but on the other hand it's actually quite pleasant.

Unfortunately, these nagging thoughts crop up during the times where I can't distract myself, especially when I'm in the shower or in the car. I've always used shower time as philosophy time, and music from my CD player is easily relegated to the background during my commute. So I still have some times where my mind wanders. And I think to myself, what exactly am I doing with my life? What's my goal?

Well, I don't have one. I'm not a goal-oriented person I guess. I have the vague understanding that I'm not where I want to be, but it's vague because I don't know what "where I want to be" is. At least, I think I don't know. Sometimes I wonder what I would be like to just pick up and go somewhere else, just to start all over like a real life game of Minecraft survival mode, except one with existing infrastructure and actual jobs instead of chopping trees with my bare fists.

I'm like a kiddie pool full of water--potentially useful, but stagnant because it's been so long since I've bothered to dump it out and clean it and put fresh water in. Wow, that analogy works way too well. I think I've finally realized that you can't use bitterness and anger as a coping mechanism, but now that I've realized it I've got to find a way to come to terms with some things. That's the tricky part, the thing that I'm avoiding, the proverbial toad that I don't want to swallow.

It's time for a quick aside on that last euphemism. Possibly one of the best pieces of advice I've received from another person was a rather strange one: swallow the toad. In my second-to-last semester of college, the spring semester of my senior year (because I completely nuked the fall semester and failed every one of my four classes, in case whoever chances to read this isn't aware) I was in a capstone class, which was a big group project that spanned the entire semester. About midway through, I started to flake on my group--I was that guy, yes--because I was a terrible student and an irresponsible person and I also thought I had nothing useful to contribute to the group. My professor caught wind of this from my group, and called me into his office for a private talk. 

He was visibly angry, and I didn't want to be anywhere near that office. I gave my weak explanation that I'd had a lot of personal stuff happen and I wasn't in a good place (which was true, but also worthlessly vague), and my professor was extremely understanding. He knew my exact predicament: things were starting to spiral out of control, because each time I encountered something difficult or daunting, I stuck my head in the sand to avoid it. "Swallow the toad," he said. What he meant was to take that difficult, ugly thing I had to do and just get it over with. Every day, to look at that thing I was really dreading, and just do it without pausing to consider its unpleasantness.My first step was to apologize to my group for being a useless group mate and move forward from there. I think this might be the singular thing I took away from any of my college classes. I wasn't one of those people that ever knew professors on a personal level, but I'm glad this one took the time to see a problem and talk with me one-on-one.

What I've come to realize is, instead of swallowing all the toads in my life, I've been finding other ways to avoid their unpleasantness. I want to just get it all over with, but it's hard. They're ugly. I'm afraid of the reactions. I know those things shouldn't matter, that I should do the things that are right to do, but I struggle with it. Maybe this writing will prove to be an exercise in moving closer to doing what I need to do. Maybe I'll spend some more time crippled by doubt and indecision. I don't know. But these things are catching up to me too quickly, and driving my life into the middle of nowhere. On the way I can find the driving enjoyable, sure, but the fact that it doesn't lead to anything useful means it's just a waste of time.

Whew, that was cathartic. I think I need some lunch now.